MIA offers apologies to Nasta Palazhanka

11 May the deputy chairperson of the Young Front Nasta Palazhanka received an answer from the Ministry of Internal Affairs to her address requiring explanations for application of foreign travel restrictions towards her.

Bear in mind that 4 April Nasta Palazhanka was put off the train to Warsaw on the Belarusian border as a criminal case had been allegedly brought against her. The border guards said it was the reason for her inclusion into the list of the persons who were temporary prohibited going abroad. The following day Nasta wrote an address to the Ministry of Internal Affairs with the request to exclude her from the list to which she had been unlawfully placed.

‘There is no information about bringing any criminal cases against you in the state database. Your passport data have been excluded from the MIA database on the citizens of the Republic of Belarus falling under temporary travel restrictions, as they have been put into it by a mistake, as a result of malfunction of the software-hardware complex.  The MIA of Belarus offers its apologies to you,’ the answer in the Belarusian language runs.

‘No doubts, this action has been well planned’, comments the situation Nasta Palazhanka. ‘That day in Warsaw I was to have had a number of important meetings related to the activities of the Young Front which could be undesirable for the authorities, that’s why it is even the assumption of a malfunction is ridiculous. It is a great pity that we haven’t saved the train tickets – otherwise I could demand financial compensation. That’s why I will consult the lawyers and may sue the MIA for moral compensation: it is abnormal when an under-aged girl is taken off the wagon at 2 a.m. and made to spend the night alone at a railway station in an unfamiliar city. Besides, I cannot be sure that such ‘malfunction’ will not happen again resulting in my return back from the border.’